Two Poems by Len Kuntz

The Wall

We went as brothers
from different towns to this one,
meeting at the memorial,
our pasts broken down by
slab after slab of gray granite.

People moved like solemn shapes
no one speaking.
Black rain pecked our skins
but those were tears on Charlie’s face.
There might have been a million names.
There might have been but one.
War is an unscrupulous host.

A young boy my son’s age
Dragged his fingers across rows of engraved letters
I thought my brothers might be angered by the child’s act
but instead my eldest grinned and said,
“That’s why I went.
For him.”

For Those

For those born later
they would only know it as the bad war
the mistake
the one they made so many movies about.
At the time, protesters received more attention
and history may never right that wrong
or the ignorance of a new generation
but to the men
to the women
to the souls who went there,
I bow down
and I say,
“God bless you.”